O Porto!

Two weeks ago (apologies for the delay, we've been kinda busy as you'll soon read about), Bec reached that magical milestone birthday, the big 3-0. Johnny had planned a weekend away to celebrate, and he wasn't giving any hints away as to the mystery location, to the point of making Bec avert her eyes and block her ears in the airport whenever someone or something might spill the beans. She did think she heard the check-in lady mutter "Bordeaux" at one point, which confused her a little as we've been to Bordeaux before... but as it turns out she actually said "Porto" and that's where we went!

Porto (or Oporto as the Portuguese call it) is Portugal's second largest city, probably best known for the port wine which takes its name from it. There are several port cellars along the river and we certainly made the most of them, joining a few tours and more importantly tasting lots of port - the white variety in particular being quite new to us and full of sweet, syrupy goodness.





















Unfortunately it rained quite a lot while we were there, which meant we didn't really get to see Porto at its best. Although there are clearly some lovely parts of the city, particularly along the riverside.
















The food was fabulous and the people extraordinarily friendly (even though at times they sound like they're talking with a sock stuffed in their mouths!) And on the plus side, as Johnny had booked us into a swanky 5-star hotel complete with the most amazing, relaxing, luxurious spa you could possibly imagine, the rain actually gave us an excuse to spend some time just chilling by the pool.